FIFA 16 scouting guide part 2: Where to scout

Nations/regions specialise in player types – but it doesn’t always work that way

There’s no benefit of sending a scout to his home nation

Reloading your reports can help you find good players anywhere

Welcome to the FIFA 16 scouting guide!

The only guide you need to youth scouting in FIFA 16

New to scouting in FIFA games and wondering what it’s all about? Or maybe you’re a seasoned scout and want to know what’s changed in FIFA 16? Whatever your situation, my guides will help you become a pro at scouting the next generation of superstars.

This guide will cover the best places to scout and where you should go to find fast, strong or any other type of player. If you want to know where to learn the basics of scouting and picking a good scout, how to spot the best players, how to develop your players and more, head over to my FIFA 16 scouting guide hub page – I’ll be adding more guides soon, so keep checking back.

What are the best nations to scout in FIFA 16?

Scouting in different places will cost you varying amounts based on where you scout and how long you scout for. In terms of trip length, you have three options: 3 months, 6 months or 9 months. A longer trip will cost more, but obviously you’ll spend longer scouting that region, giving you a greater chance of finding high potential youth players.

Not every country costs the same to scout. For example, scouting in a ‘low yield’ nation (like China) will cost you a mere £43,000 for a 9 month trip. A scouting mission to a ‘high yield’ nation (like Argentina) will cost you £259,000 for a 9 month trip.

That’s because different regions have a different chance of finding the top players (which FIFA 16 calls ‘platinum players’ – see part 1 of my FIFA 16 scouting guide). But what are the best places to scout? To see which regions have the best chance of finding platinum players, see the info below:

All that text seems a bit bewildering though, right? It’s actually fairly straightforward. In the top section, we have two numbers either side of an equals sign (=). The number to the left represents the region in which you can scout, while the number to the right gives the relative chance that region has of finding a platinum player (the higher the right-hand number, the better).

In the second section, we’ve got a definition of which left-hand number corresponds to each region. So region 0 is Argentina and Brazil, region 1 is the rest of South America, etc.

FIFA 16 rates Brazil as one of the best places to scout youth players

If we take this information and apply it to the first part, we can see that region 0 (Argentina and Brazil) has a chance of 15 of getting a platinum player. This is the highest chance in the table, meaning that Argentina and Brazil have the best chance of finding the best players – so scout there if you want to find the next Messi.

In contrast, regions 9 and 10 (rest of Asia and Australia) have the lowest chances of finding platinum players. However, they don’t have a 0% chance, so even these regions can find incredible players – you’re just much less likely to find a top player there than in Argentina or Brazil.

So what about in practice? Are you likely to notice a real difference between scouting in Brazil and scouting in Saudi Arabia? I did some testing to find out.

I hired two 5*/5* scouts and sent one to Brazil and one to Saudi Arabia. To keep things neutral I sent them both out for six months to search for the ‘Any’ player type. The trip to Brazil cost £173,000 while the trip to Saudi Arabia cost £29,000 – which one would be more worthwhile?

The highest OVR player I found was from Saudi Arabia

After simming forward each month and picking the best players from the reports I received from each scout, I had a youth academy full of 16 players. On each report I had picked only players with an upper potential range stat of 90 or above (e.g. 66-90, 70-94, etc).

This left me with 7 Saudi Arabian players and 9 Brazilian players. The lowest potential Saudi player had a range of 73-81 and the highest Saudi player had 82-88. The lowest potential Brazilian player had 75-81 potential and the highest Brazilian player had 79-89.

So while in theory Brazil has a much better chance of finding high potential players, in practice you may not notice it. I found almost as many high potential players in Saudi Arabia (supposedly one of the worst places to scout) as in Brazil, just from picking the best players in each report – I didn’t reload any reports.

This is similar to what I found in FIFA 15. Clearly, the game does deem Brazil to be a better place to scout, but in day to day scouting you may not notice any difference. Over the course of 1,000 scouting trips you may notice a difference, but over the course of six months it’s entirely possible that you won’t. I suspect, therefore, that having a good scout is more important than where you send him.

Do different nations specialise in certain player types?

I often get asked questions like ‘where should I scout to find fast players?’, or ‘I want a strong striker, where should I scout?’ And although different countries do specialise if different player types, the answer isn’t quite as straightforward as saying ‘go scout here’.

First of all, let’s take a look at which countries are best for finding different types of players. Just click the player type you’re looking for below to see which countries have the best chances of finding them. Nations at the top have the best chance. The numbers in brackets represent the score the game gives each nation.

However, I wanted to see whether this actually played out in practice or, like the Brazil vs Saudi Arabia test above, it had little bearing on day-to-day scouting.

China and Japan have the highest chance of finding fast players in FIFA 16

So I hired three 5*/5* scouts and sent them off for six months to search for the ‘Any’ player type in three nations: Ghana, Spain and Argentina. That’s because each of these three nations (or, more specifically, the regions they’re from) supposedly specialise in different player types: Ghana (Africa) for physically strong, Spain (Italy/Spain/Portugal) for fast players and Argentina (Brazil/Argentina) for technically gifted.

Each scout went to their respective destination for 6 months (all three trips cost £173,000 each). Once again I only picked the best players on each report until my academy was full – those players with a minimum upper potential value of 90. Here’s how my academy looked at the end of six months:

Ghana: 7 players

4 physically strong

2 wingers

1 attacker

Spain: 5 players

2 attackers

1 technically gifted

1 physically strong

1 playmaker

Argentina: 4 players

1 technically gifted

1 defensive minded

1 physically strong

1 playmaker

The results presented a mixed bag. On the one hand, Ghana did well in areas the game says it should specialise in: physically strong players and wingers. But on the other hand, scouting in Spain and Argentina brought back a much wider range of player types. Both nations’ ‘specialities’ (Spain: fast and technically gifted players; Argentina: fast and technically gifted players as well as attackers) didn’t really show through in greater numbers than other player types.

I had good results finding physically strong players in Ghana, but other tests were less clear

However, it should be noted that I was picking the best players on each report. The game code specifies that these nations should produce more of their respective player type specialities, not that these player types will be the best players they find.

What I mean by that is that Spain could well produce an abundance of fast players, but it could be that on your scouting reports, its goalkeepers end up being the best players and the ones you sign. Just because a nation will produce more of a certain player type, that doesn’t mean that that player type will be the best ones on your reports.

So, do nations specialise in certain player types? The answer is a cautious yes: use the data above to decide where to scout if you’re looking for a certain player type, but it’s not gospel – you’re not guaranteed to find amazing wingers in Argentina, for example (but you stand a good chance to).

Can a scout find better players by scouting his home nation?

It appears that this year there is no bonus for scouting your own nation. In previous FIFA games your scout would have a slightly better chance of finding top rated players if he looked in his own country. However, after much research I can find no evidence of that in FIFA 16.

In the spirit of fairness, I decided to test this. I hired two 5*/5* scouts, one Italian and one French. I sent the Italian scout to Italy and the French scout to Spain – both Italy and Spain have an equal chance of finding platinum players (the second best chance behind Brazil and Argentina, according to the table at the top of this article), so this would be a good way to test whether the home nation bonus exists. Once again, each scout was sent on a six-month mission looking for the ‘Any’ player type.

After doing several tests, I can say with confidence that scouting his own nation does not boost a scout’s results. In some tests one scout did better than the other, but in most tests I did the results were broadly similar – each scout found roughly the same number of high potential players whether or not they were scouting in their home nation.

Even though my French scout wasn’t looking in his home nation, he still found some great players

On the test where I found the players I’m showing here, I ended up with 7 players from Italy and 6 from Spain. Remember this is from choosing only players with a minimum upper potential of 90; the Italian scout went to his home nation and the French scout went to Spain.

So if the numbers from each nation were roughly equal, what about the quality? Well, the lowest potential Italian player had 75-81 potential and the highest had 79-93. The lowest potential Spanish player had 68-88 potential and the highest had 82-92 potential. So again, roughly equal in terms of quality.

Because you can only send one scout to a country at any one time, in the past you may have worried that your (for example) English scout would be slightly wasted if there was already another scout on a mission in England, as he would not be able to get his home nation boost. In FIFA 16, there’s no need to worry about that, as there does not appear to be any home nation boost.

Why you should reload your scouting reports to get better players

So, we’ve seen how you can find amazing players even in the lowest rated nations. Scouting in Saudi Arabia brought me plenty of great players, even though you’re not meant to be able to find many good players there.

There’s one other thing to add to this – reloading your reports. Basically, if you get a report and you don’t like any of the players your scout has found, you can quit your save, reload it, advance to the report again and you’ll be presented with a different list of players to choose from. The best method is to simply save your game the day before the report is due, so that way you only need to advance one day until you get a fresh report. It’s a quick and easy way to get better youth players.

Reloading your scouting reports can help you find even better players

This has an impact on where you scout because it means that, with enough reloading, you can find amazing players anywhere. If your finances are super tight then it may be a good bet to send your scout somewhere cheap, then just reload your reports until you find good players.

Of course, because of the unpredictability of scouting, it could take a long time and a lot of reloading to find world beaters in the lowest rated countries, but it is possible. Even Brazil and Argentina can give you reports full of poor players, so it’s worth knowing about reloading regardless of where you scout. It could save you time (in terms of your progression through the calendar year in the game) and money on scouting trips, and is a proven way of improving your academy.

Thanks for reading part one of the FIFA 16 scouting guide. If you have any thoughts on this or the YouTube video, make sure you let me know in the comments below.

So after scouting all the “best” countries ive been fairly dissapointed. After not getting alot of platinum players(maybe too much to ask for) I chose to seek for future legends in scandinavia. I must say.. I was NOT dissapointed! The number of X-94 rated players Norway gave me was insane. Almost every report gave me 2-3 X-94 rated players. I have to ask you to try to seek high potential players in lower rated countries as it worked so well for me. Anyways, just thought this might be helpful for anyone thats tired of Brazilian players!

Is it just me , but does it seem like it’s much easier to scout good (not great) prospects in Fifa 16? In a Barnet test my 1*1* scout kept bringing back decent players almost every report. On attempt 1 I got two scouted prospects; one was poor (54-66 potential, or something similar)–the other was a 65-87, which is definitely usable for Barnet. Unfortunately he was a ginger named “Raheem Bigirimana”, and I couldn’t suspend disbelief so I reloaded, figuring I may be in for a number of reloads until fining anyone else decent. Attempt two yielded 3 scouts… two were right around 65-87 and the third was 70-94. After saving a duplicate I tried again and got back two 68-90 prospects… all with a 1*1* scout. This success was a bit of an outlier, but it seems like most reports are yielding at least 1 okay prospect, regardless of scout level.

Yea I mentioned this on the previous article. Might just be a bug with the update, but you definitely get more good players (70-85 potential range) than before with the low scouts. I mean, it makes it a lot easier tryin got do RTG career modes so, can’t complain?

Another great article Alex. I’ve got three 2*/3* scouts. Sent one to the England, one to Argentina and one to Australia. I only have 1 Argentine player in my academy, a defensive minded CDM, and he has the lowest potential of my entire youth academy, with 78-84. I have 3 Australian players, one of which has the highest potential, a GK with 88-94. Then I have 7 English players. All 3 scouts are English and all have been out for 7 out of 9 months so far. So it while I’d agree with you that it doesn’t really matter which nation you scout, scouting your home nation seems to have made a substantial difference, although this is only 1 years scouting so its not enough evidence. Player specialization doesn’t seem to make much difference as well, like you said. Can’t wait for the next article, and maybe a new career mode on the youtube channel?

Are you struggling to scout good players?

Get my scouting cheat sheet to find out exactly where to find youth superstars!

No matter what player type you're looking for, my cheat sheet will help you scout amazing players. Just enter your name and email address and I'll send it straight to you. I'll also add you to me newsletter, keeping you up to date on the latest guides and tutorials to help you find better players. No spam, ever.